What is a View?

A view is nothing more than a collection of data fields from the database. The basic aim here is to narrow the number of data fields from the entire database to a more focused group of select data fields that are related or of particular interest to you.

Views are used in several functions in Stock Investor, including browsing financial data using the View tab on the Stock Notebook Notebook, exporting data to a file, and printing reports.

The default view in Stock Investor is the Standard view and it the view always applied to the Stock Notebook when you first open the program. However, this view contains approximately 255 fields (which is the maximum number of fields that you can have in one view) and can sometimes seem a little unwieldy due to the amount of data is contains.

There are 20 predefined views that come with Stock Investor, each containing data from one of the major data categories in the program—Multiples, Ratios, Valuations, etc. The views that are prebuilt into Stock Investor are designated by an asterisk (*) before the View name.

Overview of the View Editor

Users create Views in Stock Investor with the View Editor. There are three ways to access the View Editor: click on the View Editor button on the toolbar, select View Editor from the Tools menu (Tools—View Editor), or simultaneously press the Alt and V keys on the keyboard (Alt + V). Following any of these steps will open the View Editor:

The View Editor is divided into two main parts—the field picker on the left-hand side of the View Editor window and the text window on the right-hand side. The field picker is the standard field picker that is used throughout the program for selecting particular financial fields from the database. You will use this side of the window to find the field or fields that interest you. Then by selecting the Add button in the middle you should notice that the field will move over to the right side of the window. This side of the window shows you all the fields that you wish to include in this view.

The View Editor has several buttons and elements to it, which we explain here:

Naming a view

This area is used to select the name of the view that you wish to edit. The default view that will appear here when opening the View Editor is untitled if you do not presently have a view loaded against a Notebook in the background or the name of the currently loaded view. By clicking the down arrow you are able to drop down a list of available views to select.

Create new view

This button will allow you to create a new view by opening an untitled view with nothing selected as of yet.

View description

This is an option field that you can use to tag any pertinent information for your own use. This information will not be used or seen anywhere else except inside the View Editor.

Adding a field to a view

By selecting this button you are telling the view editor to include whatever field is presently highlighted into the view. This will cause that field to appear on the right side of the window. You may also add a WHOLE category to the right side of the editor window by highlighting the category name (i.e., company information) and either double-clicking on it or hitting the Add button. This is handy for making a large view which many times is used for exporting data.

Deleting a field from a view

This will delete a field that is highlighted on the right side of the window, thereby removing it from the view.

Delete all fields from a view

This will delete all the fields that have been selected to be included in the view, thereby placing it back to the beginning of creating a view.

Saving a view

The Save button will cause a save window to appear asking you to give the view a Name (required) and a Description (optional). Once you have done this select the OK button to accept the values or click on Cancel to abort the save operation.

Save a view to a new name

This is especially useful for creating duplicate copies of a view. Using the Save As buttin, you are instructing the program to save the view to a new name and also keep the current view under its orginal name.

Creating a View

To create a View, we must first open the View Editor. There are three ways to access the View Editor: click on the View Editor button on the toolbar, select View Editor from the Tools menu (Tools—View Editor), or simultaneously press the Alt and V keys on the keyboard (Alt + V).

A View only contains the data fields you add to it. That means you will probably always want to first add Company Name and/or Ticker to the View. Otherwise, if you create a view without any company identifier, you will not know which company's data you are looking at when you apply it to the Stock Notebook.

The field picker on the left side of the View Editor is where you will select individual data fields to add to the View. The field picker is divided into data categories, which you expand by clicking on the '+' signs to see the indivisual data fields within that data category. This means you must know the data categories to which the fields belong.

If you want to add Company name to a view but don't know which data category Company name resides in, don’t worry; this information is available in the Stock Investor Help System. Access the Help System by selecting Contents and Index from the Help menu at the top of the Stock Investor window (Help—Contents and Index). This will open the Help Contents window:

At this window, select the Contents tab and double-click on Field Definitions. To locate the data category for Company name, double-click on Alphabetical Listing of Field Definitions and again on the “C” (for Company name). This will list all of the data fields in Stock Investor that start with the letter ”C” in alphabetical order. From here, double-click Company name to bring up its field definition window. The field definition window tells us that the Company name field is in the Company Information data category.

To add Company name to the view, locate Company Information in the field picker on the left-hand side of the View Editor window and click on the “+” next to it. This will expand the data category to list all of the data fields that are part of the Company Information data category in alphabetical order. Next, scroll down the list of data fields in the Company Information data category until you find Company name. Add data fields to a view, in this case Company name, by either double-clicking on the data field or by highlighting the data field and using the Add button in the middle of the View Editor. This will add Company name to the text box on the right side of the View Editor window:

Also, as you add data fields to the view, the number of data fields in the view is displayed in the bottom-middle of the View Editor window (the most data fields you can have in a view is 255).

You will also want to note that the order in which you add fields to a view is the same order they will appear on the stock notebook as well as in view reports, and when used to export data.

When you are finished creating your view, you can save it by clicking on the Save button on the View Editor:

In this example we named the view Fundamental Data. If you want, you can also provide a brief description of the View. When you are finished, select OK and Stock Investor will save the portfolio.

To exit the View Editor, you can click on the “X” on the top right corner of the View Editor window or click on the Close button at the bottom of the View Editor window.

Applying a View to the Stock Notebook

The Standard view is the default View in Stock Investor and is always the view applied to the Stock Notebook when you first open the program. You can also apply different views to the Stock Notebook.

To apply a view to the Stock Notebook, click on the down arrow of the View pull-down menu on the toolbar to reveal the list of views in the program. The views whose names are preceded by an asterisk (*) are those that come with the program.

Selecting the Fundamental Data view that we created earlier will display the data fields in the view for those companies that passed the *Zweig, Martin screen, which we have also applied:

Editing Views

You can edit any view you have created and save the changes. In order to edit the Fundamental Data view we have used in our examples, we need to return to the View Editor following the directions described earlier. Next, click on the arrow of the Name pull-down menu at the top left of the View Editor. Then scroll down the list and select the name of the view you wish to edit, in this case Fundamental Data.

Deleting Fields from a View

If you want to remove Ticker from the Fundamental Data view, click on the gray square found to the left of Ticker in the text box on the right-hand side of the View Editor. This will select Ticker. To remove the selected data field from the view, click on the Delete button in the upper-middle portion of the View Editor window:

This will remove Ticker from the view:

If you wish to overwrite the original view and save the view that reflects changes you have made, click Save. However, if you wish to keep the edited view as well as the original view, click on Save As. You will then be prompted to name and describe the altered view, at which point this view will be saved and the original view kept intact.

Changing the Order of a View

Beyond adding or deleting data fields from an existing view, you can also change the order in which the fields appear. To do this, click and hold on the gray box to the left of any data field you wish to re-order until an up/down arrow appears in the box. Then drag it upward or downward until it is positioned where you want it within the list of data fields and release the mouse button. To keep this new order, you need to save the view.

Sorting a Stock Notebook by View Fields

Within the stock notebook, you are able to sort companies by any of the fields in the applied view (as well as by using the Rank function from the Tools menu). In Stock Investor, the default rank is by company name, ascending order.

However, by right-clicking on any of the data column headings in the stock notebook, you can sort the companies by that particular field in ascending (lowest to highest) or descending order. Here, we wish to rank those companies passing the Zweig screen by market cap from largest to smallest (descending order).

To do this, locate the Market Cap Q1 column in the stock notebook. Right-click on the Market Cap Q1 column heading and select Rank By Market Cap Q1, Descending:

Generating Reports Using Views

Stock Investor contains a myriad of reports to choose from. There are two ways to access the Available Reports menu: click on the Print icon on the toolbar or select Print from the File menu (File—Print). This will open the Available Reports window:

Here we will focus on those reports that utilize views—view reports and statistical summary reports. For information on all of the reports available in Stock Investor Pro, visit the Reports section of this wiki.

View Reports

Just as views allow you to display select data, they can also be used to print only the specific information that interests you. A view report allows users to print company and industry data in a tabular format. Data can be printed either vertically (with company names running across the top of the page) or horizontally (with company names listed down the side of the page). You can print view reports for either the selected company or the entire group of companies in the active stock notebook. You can also sort the stock notebook prior to printing and this will be the order in which the companies are displayed in the report.

If you have applied a stock screen, the passing companies are part of the active stock notebook. So, assuming we have applied the *Zweig, Martin screen, a view report for all companies in the active notebook would only include the companies that passed the Zweig screen.

To print a view report using the Fundamental Data view for the companies these companies, go to the Available Reports menu, select View Report – All Companies in Active Notebook, and then click the Print button at the bottom of the Available Reports window.

At the View Report window, you can select the view you wish to print (Fundamental Data) and whether you wish to display across by field or issue (company):

Once you are finished, click the Ok button to generate the view report:

Note that since we had previously ranked the stock notebook in descending order by market capitaliztion (Q1), that is how the companies appear in this View Report.

Statistical Summary Reports

Have you ever wondered what the median price-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 is? Or what the average market capitalization (shares outstanding multiplied by current share price) is for the results of a screen? A statistical summary report allows you to calculate this information.

Statistical summary reports are similar to view reports in that both are based upon a view containing the data fields you specify. However, while view reports display the field values for each company, statistical summary reports calculate the average, median, high, low and standard deviation values for the generated fields based on the active set of companies in the stock notebook. Again, the active set of companies may be the entire database of companies, the companies in a loaded portfolio, or the results of an applied stock screen.

Therefore, you can calculate various statistical data on the results of a screen, a portfolio of companies, or the entire universe of companies in Stock Investor.

To print a statistical summary report using the Fundamental Data view for the Zweig passing companies, go to the Available R, select Statistical Summary Report – Active Notebook, and click Print.

Just like with a View Report, you are prompted to select which View you would like to use:

For this example, we will once again use the Fundamental Data view we created earlier. So, we click on Fundamental Data and then click the Ok button to generate the report:

The program calculates the average, median, high, low and standard deviation values for the numeric fields in Fundamental Data view for the ccompanies in the active notebook, which were the four companies passing the Zweig screen.

Exporting View Data

If you are interested in manipulating Stock Investor data outside of the program, you can export fields listed in a view. To begin, you need to make sure that the companies for which you wish to export data are in the stock notebook—the entire database, a portfolio, or the results of a screening filter. In addition, you can sort the data by a given data field—the order in which the companies will be exported. In Stock Investor, the default rank is by company name, ascending order. However, you can use the rank function (select Rank from the Tools menu) to order the companies in another way or use the right-click function described earlier.

Next, select Export Data from the file menu. This will open an Export Data dialog box with pull-down menus where you can specify View, Type, and To, which is the location to which you want the data exported:

We are exporting the companies passing the *Zweig, Martin screen, ranked in descending order by Market Cap Q1, using the Fundamental Data view. In addition, we are exporting the data in Excel spreadsheet format. However, data can be exported to several file formats, including Excel spreadsheet, Xbase database, and comma-delimited and tab-delimited ASCII text files. Once you are finished, click the Ok button to start the export process.

When you export data from Stock Investor, two files are created during the export process. One is the file that contains the exported financial data, while the other is a so-called “key file” with a file name ending in _KEY. The key file contains the headings of the data points that were exported and consists of two columns of data—the short field name and long field name. The short name is limited to 10 characters and is the data field name used internally for Stock Investor and exported with any export file. The long name is the “plain English” name of the data field that is visible when you work with the field within Stock Investor. You can open the key file, copy the field names, transpose them, and paste them over the short names in your exported file for easier identification and analysis.